A crowdfunding campaign that aims to bring an inexpensive 9-inch HD portable
monitor to the popular $25 Raspberry Pi has hit its target on Kickstarter in
just over two days.

The monitor, dubbed HDMIPi, will include an LCD panel that will show images at a resolution of 1280x800 pixels. Raspberry Pi computers will be able to hook up to the monitor via an HDMI controller board that can be wired to the LCD.

The HDMIPi is being made by RasPi.TV and Cyntech. The companies put up the project on crowdfunding site Kickstarter on Thursday, seeking £55,000, and hit their goal within 50.5 hours. At the time of writing, the project had raised £82,790.

"It's been a fun, but tiring couple of days. Our next steps are to research stretch goals. We've had a lot of great suggestions and we're going to look into them to see what's feasible and what isn't," wrote Alex Eames from RasPi.TV and Dave Mellor from Cyntech in a joint update on the site.

"We're a bit behind on this because we were funded faster than we expected. But that's a great problem to have, right?"

While the monitor’s primary target is Raspberry Pi users, it can also be used with devices that have an HDMI output port, such as laptops, phones, tablets, video cameras, and gaming consoles. The creators believe that HDMIPi has a major potential market in DSLR photography and videography.

Eames told PCWorld that the final price of the monitor will depend on the country, stating that in the US it could be around $100, but in Europe it will be 20-23 per cent more because of local taxes. Like the Raspberry Pi, however, the goal is to bring down the price as much as possible.

The HDMIpi will be delivered in February next year, according to its Kickstarter page. The planned version of the monitor does not have a touchscreen, but its addition is being considered.

"A lot of people have asked for touch, so we are considering how this might be achieved. It's possible we might be able to add it as a stretch goal or a "bolt-on" we just don't know yet. But enough people have mentioned it that we are sitting up and taking notice."

The Raspberry Pi single-board computer was developed in the UK by the Raspberry Pi Foundation with the intention of promoting the teaching of basic computer science in schools.

The credit card-sized Raspberry Pi essentially consists of a circuit board, sockets for a keyboard, monitor and Ethernet cable, and an all-in-one “system on a chip” to do all the number crunching, graphics and memory work.